Winging it, p.8
Winging It, page 8
Eren didn’t press. Not right away. He let the quiet speak for him. Let the pressure rise naturally, like fire waiting to catch.
Finally, the kid broke. “I don’t know who the guy was. I swear. But he didn’t feel… normal. Like he already had Dominion and wanted more.”
Eren nodded once. “That’ll be all.”
We turned to go, and I followed him into the hush of the club’s deeper shadows.
I’d spent weeks wondering if Eren Thorne was just fire and frost, all discipline and no depth.
But watching him work?
There was method in his force. And it worked.
Even if it made me itch to step in and soften the edges.
We both got answers. Just in wildly different ways.
We moved past the empty bar, the echo of last night’s bass still clinging to the walls like smoke. The lounge loomed to our left, velvet curtains drawn tight, guarding secrets that felt too fresh to name.
Eren said nothing as we cut through the quiet, our footsteps muffled by carpet worn smooth by years of noise. The hallway narrowed, dimmer here, the glitter of Dominion lights replaced by flickering fluorescents.
At the end of it, the manager’s office waited—glass and chrome and shadow—like it had been expecting us all along.
The heavy glass door creaked open like it was reluctant to let us through.
The moment we stepped into Carissa’s office, I felt the air shift. It wasn’t the lighting or the silence—it was her. She glanced up from her tablet and her eyes caught on Eren like a match brushing against sulfur.
Carissa sat behind her desk, poised and guarded like a queen behind enemy lines. Her features were sharp and striking, softened only by expertly applied makeup that said I’m in control, even when I’m not.
“Agent Thorne,” she said, and for once, there was no edge—just familiarity wrapped in something like sympathy. “Didn’t expect to see you on this side of things. Thought you got dealt a rough hand last time.”
Eren didn’t blink. “We’re not here to talk about that.”
The temperature in the room cooled immediately.
He stepped forward, crisp and composed, every movement wrapped in that relentless Dominion Authority energy. “We’re investigating the death of Finn Belgrave."
Carissa leaned back, trying to cloak herself in detachment, but I caught the shift in her shoulders. Her poise cracked just a little.
“Finn was reliable,” she said. “Professional. Never caused problems.”
I stayed quiet, watching. Reading her. She was too smooth. Too polished. Like someone who’d practiced this story in the mirror and still wasn’t sure it would hold.
Eren didn’t give her space to retreat. “When did that change?”
Carissa hesitated—only for a second—but he saw it. We both did. “Lately, he seemed… distracted,” she admitted. “Still showed up. Still performed. But there was something underneath. Like his head was somewhere else.”
“Was there someone new in his orbit?” Eren asked. His voice wasn’t cold. It was precise.
Carissa exhaled like she’d been holding the truth in her lungs too long. “There was a woman. Not a regular. Came in twice, maybe three times. Didn’t belong here.”
Eren’s jaw flexed. “How so?”
“Too put together. Too quiet. Like she knew she was being watched and didn’t care.” Her fingers drummed against the tablet now, rhythm uneven. “And Finn didn’t introduce her. Not once. And he would. He was close to everyone here."
“Did he seem worried around her?” I asked, gently stepping in.
She glanced at me, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. The last time she came in, he wouldn’t make eye contact. Like… like he was ashamed.”
The air in Carissa’s office was thick—like a thunderstorm waiting to snap. Eren stood firm, all hard lines and quiet pressure, pressing her for more about Finn’s final days. I could feel it—his presence filling the room like smoke. Heavy. Sharp.
I shifted in my seat, heart thudding too fast, the tension coiling tight in my chest.
“Excuse me,” I said, voice steady but quiet. “Could you point me to the ladies’ room?”
Eren’s head snapped toward me, brows pulling together. That signature seriously? look.
“Stay focused,” he muttered under his breath, low enough that Carissa might not catch it.
I didn’t answer. Just stood and smoothed my shirt, offering Carissa a polite nod as I turned and stepped out the door.
The moment it closed behind me, the noise dropped away. I let out a quiet breath, letting the cool quiet of the empty club wrap around me. The air out here felt different—charged. Like something was waiting just around the corner.
I didn’t head for the restroom.
Instead, I turned toward the VIP lounge.
It was dark, lit only by the spill of filtered light through high windows and the dim glow of abandoned wall sconces. The space looked haunted—shadows clinging to velvet furniture, drink glasses still scattered like forgotten confessions. Last night, this room had pulsed with music and laughter.
Now it was a graveyard with glitter.
I stepped lightly, eyes scanning the floor and tables.
Then I saw it.
A napkin, crumpled and shoved beneath the leg of a low table. I crouched down and slid it free—its surface marked with faint shimmer. Violet.
The same shimmer we found in that Dominion suppressant vial.
No way that’s a coincidence.
I turned it over in my hands, heart ticking faster.
And just beside it, tucked into the crevice of a booth cushion, something else caught the light—a small token, metallic and cold to the touch. I picked it up slowly. It was engraved with strange, sharp lines. Not decorative—symbolic.
Corporate. Clandestine.
A shell company? Private research?
The design didn’t ring a bell, but the unease it left behind… did.
“What were you into, Finn?” I whispered, slipping both items into my pocket. “And who did you trust to drag you into it?”
A soft creak from the hallway made me turn my head.
Time to go.
But I knew one thing for sure: whatever Finn had gotten involved in, it wasn’t just nightlife drama or experimental curiosity.
It was deeper.
And it had teeth.
Chapter
Eleven
I handed Eren what I found the second I returned to Carissa’s office, and he immediately bagged them up before deciding it was time to go.
We piled into his car together, not saying much. My heart was still hammering; there was something exhilarating about looking and finding something, even if I had no idea it would make a difference.
The café came into view like a secret whispered between city blocks—tucked between two tall buildings, with ivy crawling up its brick face and a sign that had clearly weathered a few too many Dominion storms. The hand-painted letters read Cinder & Steam, faded and curling, but still proud.
I didn’t expect him to stop. Didn’t expect the subtle turn of the wheel, the way he parked with precision, like he’d done this before. No announcement. No explanation. Just Eren, already out of the car and heading toward the door, expecting me to follow.
So I did.
Inside, it smelled like warm cinnamon and old books—like someone had bottled comfort and poured it over dark roast espresso. The lighting was soft, the kind that made people lower their voices without realizing it. A sleepy orange cat stretched along the counter, tail twitching lazily beneath a chalkboard that read TOAST IS JUDGING YOU. I smiled before I could stop myself.
Eren picked a table near the back, out of the way but with a clear view of the exits. Predictable. Controlled. But his posture was more relaxed than usual—hands resting on the table, not clenched, not coiled. Just… steady.
I slid into the seat across from him, trying not to look too curious. But I was.
He didn’t say why he brought me here. It wasn’t HQ. It wasn’t an interrogation room. That alone said more than he probably meant it to.
The clink of mugs and the low hum of conversation filled the café like a comforting soundtrack, but it was the voice that rose from behind the counter that made my head snap up.
“Eren!”
A woman with silver hair twisted into a soft bun emerged from the back, wiping her hands on a flour-streaked apron that had definitely seen better decades. Her eyes sparkled like she carried a joke no one else was in on—and maybe hadn’t stopped laughing since 1983.
Eren leaned back in his seat, his expression shifting from cool composure to something just this side of sheepish.
“Hey, Tawny,” he said.
His voice had a softness I hadn’t heard before. Like maybe, just maybe, it had a setting lower than “gravel and intimidation.”
I nearly choked, coughing into my elbow as I tried to process what I was witnessing.
Eren Thorne has friends? Actual human friends who greet him like he’s not emotionally constipated incarnate?
Tawny’s gaze landed on me, bright and sharp. “And who’s this lovely creature?”
“Cadet Vale,” Eren said quickly. “She’s assigned to me for her field study.”
Not Aurora, not even Ms. Vale. Just Cadet. I could practically hear the walls going back up.
“Aurora,” I offered, extending my hand. “But my friends call me Auri. It’s really nice to meet you.”
Tawny’s smile widened. She took my hand with both of hers. Warm, flour-dusted, genuine.
“Well, aren’t you polite? I like her already,” she said, shooting Eren a look that was probably illegal in at least three jurisdictions. “Eren doesn’t do cafés, you know. Not unless he’s guilt-tripped or cornered.”
Eren huffed. “It’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that,” Tawny chirped, grinning like she’d already adopted me.
He cleared his throat and gestured to the counter. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
That earned him a blink from me.
“The spiced chai?” I asked, arching a brow.
He didn’t flinch. “It’s fine.”
Tawny winked at me and vanished behind the counter, leaving us in the lingering silence of her warmth.
I leaned forward, elbows on the table. “So… this is your spot?”
Eren shrugged. “It’s quiet.”
I let the moment settle before answering. “It’s more than that. It feels lived in. Like it remembers people. Places like this don’t stay open unless someone pours their whole heart into it.”
He glanced at me, and for just a second, something flickered behind his fire-shadow eyes. Something raw. Something real.
But before I could name it, Tawny returned with our drinks—mine with extra foam and cinnamon, his looking grim and serious despite its sugary twin.
“She’s charming,” Tawny said, setting the mugs down and tapping a spoon to Eren’s saucer like a scolding aunt. “Try not to ruin her.”
He grunted. I smiled.
And maybe, just maybe… he smiled too. A little.
The light caught in his hair, softened the lines of his face. He didn’t look kind—not exactly—but he didn’t look unreachable either. Something about this space made him feel more real. Less fire-forged icon, more man trying to hold the weight of too many shadows.
It wasn’t an apology, this stop.
It wasn’t praise either.
But it was… something. Something small and strange and important in the silence between us.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked, voice low but cutting through the quiet like it always did.
I blinked, caught off guard by how direct it was. By how much I wanted to answer.
I hesitated, swirling the foam of my drink with the tip of my finger. “Still thinking about Finn,” I said finally, voice soft. “And how someone can disappear so slowly that no one notices until they’re already gone.”
I didn’t look up.
But I felt it.
His attention.
His quiet.
The steam from my chai curled upward in lazy spirals, fogging the air between us like a secret being whispered but never spoken aloud. I leaned in, palms cradling the mug, letting its heat seep into my skin. Across the table, Eren took a slow sip of his own drink, eyes on me like he was waiting for me to say something that mattered.
“What do you think really happened to him?”
He set the mug down, tapped a finger to his temple. His voice was low, steady, like he was sorting through a case file inside his head and pulling pieces out one by one.
“Finn wasn’t just distracted. He was scared. The barback said he was jumpy. Someone was asking questions—about Dominion stuff. That’s not small talk.”
I nodded slowly, the memory of Finn’s easy grin from the night before flashing through my mind like a ghost trying to wave goodbye.
“And the woman,” I added. “Carissa said she didn’t belong. Not in a ‘wrong crowd’ way. More like… she knew something no one else did.”
Eren leaned back, arms crossing over his chest the way he always did when he was about to disagree with me but didn’t quite want to.
“She could’ve been sniffing around burnout cases. Dominion instability. Some people get desperate when their power starts slipping.”
I stared into the foam art still swirling in my cup, thinking of Finn—how his hands had moved with practiced ease behind the bar, how he’d joked with me like the world wasn’t pressing in from all sides.
“Maybe he wasn’t scared for himself,” I murmured. “Maybe he was trying to protect someone. Maybe he got caught in the middle of something he didn’t ask for.”
His eyes flicked up to mine—sharp, steady, not cruel but not soft either.
“That kind of thinking?” he said, voice quiet. “It gets people hurt.”
“Or maybe it saves them,” I replied before I could stop myself.
There was a beat of silence. Just the clink of ceramic on wood and the soft hum of the café’s old ceiling fan.
He studied me for a moment, like he wasn’t sure whether to argue or let it go.
“No conspiracy,” I said finally. “No dark underworld plot. Just someone scared. And someone else trying to do the right thing too late.”
His jaw shifted, and something unreadable flickered across his face—like he didn’t quite know what to call the thing rising between us either.
“People think cozy means simple,” I said quietly. “But fear? Fear’s always personal.”
Eren didn’t say anything. He just reached for his cup again and drank slowly, the tension between us loosening just enough to feel the space where something new could settle.
Respect, maybe.
Or something else entirely.
The steam from my chai curled between us, soft and slow, like it didn’t realize the weight hanging in the air. I cradled the mug in both hands, letting the warmth ground me while I stared down at the cinnamon swirls on the surface like they might spell out our next move.
“We should go back to Pulse,” I said finally, watching the words ripple through the space like a pebble dropped in still water. “Carissa said the woman only came in twice. That’s manageable. We can scrub the footage. Check timestamps. See who she talked to.”
His eyes lifted, sharp and unreadable. “You think she used a card?”
I shrugged. “If she did, we might be able to trace the transaction. If she didn’t… well, that tells us something too.”
He gave a small nod, like he approved but didn’t want to give me the satisfaction of saying it out loud.
“You handle the footage,” he said. “I’ll talk to Carissa again. She might be more forthcoming now that she’s not trying to protect her club’s image.”
I raised a brow. “You think she’s hiding something?”
He didn’t answer right away, just sat back in his chair, arms folding across his chest like a wall going up.
“She’s holding back,” he said. “People do that when they think the truth might cost them something.”
I took another sip, letting the spices bloom on my tongue before setting the mug down gently on the saucer.
“Do you always assume people are guilty before they even speak?” I asked, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. Not accusing—just curious.
Eren leaned back in his seat, arms crossed like armor, his gaze steady on me — like I was a variable in an equation he couldn’t quite solve. “Do you always assume they’re innocent?”
I shrugged, swirling the dregs of cinnamon and cardamom at the bottom of my cup. “It’s easier to start with hope. And isn't that the entire point of our criminal justice system? Innocent until proven guilty?"
There was a beat of silence, then a shift — subtle but sharp — in the set of his shoulders. A flicker behind those fire-shadow eyes. Like something inside him wanted to argue, but didn’t have the strength to.
“Hope doesn’t always help,” he said quietly.
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. “Maybe not. But sometimes it’s all someone has left.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was heavy. Intentional. Like the kind that settled after a door creaked open just a little too far.
It felt like we were standing on opposite sides of something invisible — not enemies, not exactly allies, but two people orbiting the same gravity with very different maps.
“Hope can blind you,” he said at last, his voice low, almost thoughtful. “Make you miss the cracks.”
“So can fear,” I replied. “So can giving up before something even has a chance to grow.”
Our eyes met then. Really met. And for a second, it wasn’t about the case or the training or the assignment that tethered us. It was about the why — why we kept fighting, why we carried what we did.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair — that telltale gesture that meant frustration was turning into surrender, at least a little.
“We need facts,” he said. “Real leads. Not theories and feelings.”
